A Commitment
to Each Client.
When you have had good fortune throughout your life, you want to share that wealth with the people you love the most. Leaving an inheritance is certainly a great way to pass your good fortune along to those closest to you, but you can't witness their user enjoyment of...
For a long time, people trying to leave behind a specific estate plan would hand-write their wishes for their legacies. Doing so ensured that people could validate their wishes by verifying their handwriting. The use of witnesses and notaries has diminished the...
Some adults create their estate plan and then forget about it. While it’s acceptable to not dwell on it daily, you should plan to review it periodically so you can ensure that it’s all accurate. Ideally, you’ll do this every couple years. You must also review the...
It is common for individuals to focus on physical assets while creating the various documents that become an estate plan. Unfortunately, they might fail to realize that digital assets have slowly grown in importance over the last two decades. Couples often find that...
An estate dispute can be expensive for your family. It’s necessary to take steps to resolve disputes as soon as you can so that you can distribute the estate’s assets as intended. If you are the executor of the estate and are faced with litigation, it’s important for...
When starting the estate planning process, you may hear the term “legacy planning.” There is a current trend to replace the former with the latter to give a fresh face to the process. Is estate planning and legacy planning synonymous? Yes, and no. Everyone has an...
No one likes the idea of their family tearing itself apart with lawsuits and will challenges after they are gone. That’s why many Illinois residents who create their wills insist that their attorneys include a no-contest clause, in an attempt to force their family...
If you’re making an estate plan and you have an extensive art collection, it’s very important to understand the true value of that collection. Things may have changed massively -- for better or worse -- since you bought those pieces. In fact, an increasing value is...
A trustee has the responsibility of managing the assets that fund a trust and distributing them to beneficiaries. The person who created the trust assigned them to a position of authority likely because that individual believed the trustee was a responsible, ethical...
You have built your estate for years, and you probably want to save as much of it so that your family can have a comfortable, secure life when you are gone. Currently, the federal government can tax up to 40% of any estate that surpasses the amount of $11.7 million...
